Bring on the pink!

If you're reading this right now I'd like to say a special thank you to you for following our journey. I'm overwhelmed by the love and support we've received since announcing our adoption plans. 99% of it has been positive and heart warming! I've also had to fend off the negative or completely clueless.

My first awkward encounter came about just a few days ago while my Mom and I were shopping at Storkland. I was looking for crib bedding to get ideas and the girl helping us asked if I was pregnant. I said no, we're adopting in November. Then she proceeded to go on and on about how I look too young to adopt because "most people that adopt are like 40 something after they find out that they can't have kids... Can you not have kids?" Um, what the hell lady? The conversation just kept going downhill from there and she clearly had no idea how rude she was being. At one point, she said something about she always thought it would be nice to adopt but that it was too expensive so "I guess I just have to have my own". Siiigh. Maybe it doesn't sound like much now but it still upset me. Other questions I get are people wondering what country we're adopting from and if it's finalized already. I'm sure they're just attempting to be friendly but it's become clear to me over the past few weeks and months that a lot of people have absolutely no idea how adoptions actually work.

Okay rant over! For now.

A few weeks ago Allen and I were able to join the birth mother for the gender ultrasound. It was the first time that I got to see the little jellybean on the screen and it was such a lovely and fun experience. I was  completely smitten by this wiggly creature. Throughout our time trying to conceive we discussed lots of ideas  that we really wanted to explore. Thanks to Pinterest one of them was a fun gender reveal. For those that aren't familiar (mostly the older generation... heh) a gender reveal is when the ultrasound tech doesn't tell you what the gender is at the appointment and they seal the results in an envelope for you to find out later in some creative way. Since my Dad passed away, balloons have always held a special memory for me. It's a long and pretty comical story but they will forever remind me of my Dad. I knew that we just had to incorporate balloons into this special time. I'll admit, the 4 days between the ultrasound and our balloon reveal was absolutely killing me, though. We ended up double wrapping the envelope just so that we wouldn't be tempted to try to see through it! So anyway, without going into all the boring specifics, my sister was the one who knew the results and she coordinated everything for us.

Us, being the tree huggers that we are, didn't want to litter so that's why the balloons tied down and didn't just float away.

Pink for girl! The last picture in the set is pretty much us just going crazy with excitement. Evvveryone wanted us to have a little girl so of course I was convinced that it was a boy. Obviously I would have been more than ecstatic with either one, but I did really (really REALLY) want a girl! Opening the box to have pink balloons fly out was one of the most fun experiences ever. We have a fairly janky video of the whole thing that we get a good laugh out of watching. It was raining off and on the entire day and we couldn't get the camera to stay set up so it's basically filled with chaos and bleeps. Thanks for all the help, sissy! You're the best.

The ironic part about our planning is that I bought baby name books at least a year ago (maybe longer, I don't remember) but because every month was a disappointment I couldn't bring myself to actually read them until the time came. So much time had passed that we actually ended up coming up with our top baby name picks on our own. Once we discovered the gender I got about halfway through one of the baby name books before putting them away again. Nothing came close to the name that we already fell in love with soo unless something else knocks our socks off I'm happy to announce that her name will be Mackenzie Marie. There is some really neat double meanings behind the name choice but out of privacy for the birth mother I won't go into detail. We just love it so and couldn't be happier!

Alright, I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot but that's all for now. 

Love love.

Heather

How I feel on a daily basis. Especially baby shopping.